Impressive and ambitious epic that is of it's time

Rating: Null/10 (7 July 2004)

The Longest Day could never be made today. Only the studio system, in it's last gasps by the production date of this film, could afford to put so many A-List stars into a film for, in many cases, fleeting cameos.
Many of the criticisms levied at the film are merely reflections of the prevailing attitude to such a project in the sixties. WWII was still a vivid memory to many of the makers (Richard Todd virtually plays himself in this film) and understandably they submit to the temptation of making their comrades a little more consciously heroic than they were. This after all is designed to be an entertainment - not a documentary. Nevertheless there is a more even handed treatment of the material than you might expect, the victory is shown as being as much due to German errors as to Allied successes and the acknowledgement of the parts played by the Free French and resistance groups seems more enlightened than modern Hollywood often manages. Three pieces of tour-de-force camera work stick out vividly - a small group of GI's playing craps is revealed, through a spectacular zoom out and tracking shot to be a vast dormitory of soldiers awaiting the word to go. Two Luftwaffe fighters strafe the beaches and we see every bit of WWII hardware the production could lay hands on as we see the attack run from the fighters POV. Finally the opening of the assault on a German garrison filmed as another single tracking shot that must have taken whole days to re-set between takes.
Dated yes but still a significant piece of cinema and a fitting tribute to the Men and Women who lost their lives in June 1944.